MindjackReview

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Is Mindjack the future of third-person shooters, or does it present too many headaches?

By Tristan Ogilvie

With the Gears of War and Uncharted franchises setting supremely high standards for cover-based third-person shooters, other developers must go out of their minds trying to think of new ways to stand out from the crowd. And thus Japanese developer feelplus has done exactly that; it's built a cover-based shooter that allows you to literally go out of your mind and take control of enemies and other NPCs in order to give you the advantage during a firefight. Mindjack is not merely a third-person shooter, but a third, fourth, fifth, umpteenth person shooter, which sounds cool on paper – it's just a shame that an extremely poor implementation of the concept results in your disembodied mind shuffling clumsily back and forth between available hosts like the producers of The Tonight Show.

Set in the not-too-distant-but-still-vaguely-futuristic-sounding year of 2031, Mindjack features a C-grade sci-fi plot revolving around the crumbling of world governments and the rise of evil corporations, in an era in which jacking into other people's minds is somehow possible (though never clearly explained). You play Jim, a special agent who alongside female protagonist Rebecca must shoot waves of faceless soldiers in corridors populated with crates and motorcycles from the movie Tron, as you attempt to infiltrate the headquarters of the nefarious NERKAS corporation. Okay, so this synopsis may sound a bit nebulous, but that's mainly because what little narrative exists is presented via hazy flashbacks and cutscenes featuring some of the worst voice acting in recent memory – the actors seriously deliver their lines as though they're reading them off the bottom row of an eye chart. So let's skip the story and get to the shooting.

429 Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Error 429 Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Mashing buttons will get you nowhere!

Guru Meditation:

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At its core, Mindjack resembles an awkward facsimile of Gears of War. You can roadie-run, snap to cover, blindfire, dive roll and so on, but it's just nowhere near as refined as Epic's flagship shooter, and frustrations abound: invisible edges extend out beyond pieces of cover so that you're often shooting into it rather than around it, grenade-throwing is limp and inaccurate and melee attacks lack impact.

But Mindjack isn't just a straight up shooter; it has a few extra tricks up its sleeve. Firstly is the ability to "mindslave" an enemy. After you bring an enemy to their knees you get a brief window before they expire in which to revitalize them and turn them against their fellow foes. This applies to not only human soldiers but also machines such as the flying BioShock-style sentry bots, and even the demented gun-strapped chimps that appear on a handful of occasions throughout the game.

"I'm going to jack your mind, sucka! Then I'm going to drive around in it and pick up hookers!"

Once you've got an enemy on your side you can either rely on it to cause a diversion while you flank other enemies in the area, or "mindjack" it and control it firsthand. By clicking both thumbsticks in you leave your body and drift around like a ghost before re-entering another, but this is where Mindjack really comes unstuck. Whereas a similar setup in the last-gen FPS Battlefield 2: Modern Combat had you zipping between soldiers in a slick and near-instant manner, in Mindjack the process is far too slow and disorientating – you can cycle through available bodies with the shoulder buttons but the close-up camera angle used gives little clue as to where exactly each body is in the environment, and in the midst of a firefight this only serves to stoke the flames of frustration.